


The Frost Giant's Child

by Leonawriter



Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Domestic Violence, Gen, Pre-Canon, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:39:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>vanitybullet answered: Snow. Pick a pairing and write/draw something sad using the prompt of snow </p><p>Well, 'sad' was one way of putting it.  Pre-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Frost Giant's Child

vanitybullet answered: Snow. Pick a pairing and write/draw something sad using the prompt of snow

It was cold, and he found himself shivering.

Too cold, too cold. He should have brought an extra coat, but he'd been in too much of a hurry to get out of the door, and had forgotten. He'd promised himself - promised - that this year it would be different. He'd promised himself that he'd be able to deal with it because it would be different, they would be, and he'd make it work, he would.

It... hadn't worked.

Dad had shouted again, and Mama had blamed it on him.  _We were fine before you came_ _along_.

She never meant it.  She always apologised later, Mama did, and so did Dad, for the things they said and whenever they threw his things around.

He was still clutching his prized stuffed fox, as though the little amount of heat he gave it would warm him up, as though holding it tight enough would make it real.  He'd got that fox from Gramma, five years ago.  Dad had made fun of him for how it wasn't a boy's toy at his age, only nine, but Gramma had told him that Dad hadn't let go to his bear for years.

He wondered where that bear was now, and if Dad missed it.

He wondered when he'd stopped shivering.

He'd run out of the door, bolted like a deer in the headlights from the home-that-wasn't-home, and had hardly noticed where he was going until he was too lost to find his way back.

So now, he had no idea where he was.

He knew he wasn't in a town, because there weren't any houses.  It wasn't a park, because it wasn't clean enough.  There were trees, trees everywhere, and only just enough light coming through so that he didn't trip over himself with his numb feet and numb legs.

But if he didn't keep trying to walk, he wouldn't get anywhere, and if he didn't get anywhere, then he wouldn't find warmth again.  Even if he was starting to forget what that felt like.

His body had other ideas.  One of his feet failed to move as he'd intended, tripping him up and landing him face-first into the blanket of snow, almost untouched save for the animals in their natural habitat.

For the first time since he'd run away, he began to cry.  With barely enough energy to gather to sob, he loosed it all - the pain of not feeling loved, the hurt of knowing.  

He curled up in on himself, and cried himself to a fitful sleep.  

The figure appeared in the forest like a mystery.

At times, his head seemed to reach the heights of the bottom branches of the trees, while at others he seemed to stoop far lower.  From a distance, the figure's build was thick set, but as he came closer, if one were to look one would see that the bulk was mostly made up of furs and skins that shifted, when the hypothetical onlooker wasn't looking, into more modern clothing.

He shook his head, angry and sad at the same time.

 _"My, my,"_ he said, words a bit of every kind of northern accent and tongue that had ever been thought of.  _"What a place to find you.  And in such a state... no, no, this won't do at all.  Here..."_

The man - or god, even, if that was what he was - sent a breath from scarred lips to his chapped hands, then rubbed them together to properly generate the warmth.

One hand went to the boy's forehead, gently bringing warmth where there was none.  The other took the fur (parka coat) cloak from his back, and covered him with it.

_"There you go.  Nice and warm.  Or, you will be, in time."_

He stayed there, for a while.  He wasn't known for staying, or staying still in general, but sometimes he did.  He'd once settled for Glut, after all, and again for Sigyn.  And if he found another, he might stay for them also.

The sky had started to change colour by the time the boy started to open his eyes, and the god chuckled to see his own shade of green reflected right back at him, and through the hood of his jacket, strands of red hair, not wild, but still on fire.

It was like looking into a mirror that spanned the ages, from present to past and back again.

 _"Hello, boy.  Do you have a_ _name?"_

The boy shook his head, eyes wide, and the god hummed for a moment, a melodic sound taken from a silver tongue.

_"Don't have one or don't want to be known by it?  There are those with many kennings.  It's not unusual to want to lose one or two over your years."_

The boy shrugged, and started to shiver again, which the god took as a good sign.

"Wh- wh- who- who are-"

_"Me?  Why, I am the frost and the fire, the hearth and the wild and the chaos.  I am within all things, and yet not everything desires me.  I am whatever you wish me to be.  I am mischief itself, a trick played for good or for ill."_

"O- oh..."

He wasn't awake nor aware enough to comprehend, or accept.  The god was fine with this.

_"I can take you as far as you need to go for now, kiddo.  But that's only going to stop you from going to my daughter sooner rather than later when I've got plans for you.  You know that, right?  Plans.  Big ones."_

The smooth voice easily lulled the boy, taken up and carried in the god's arms, to sleep.  It would be many hours before he'd wake again, and when he did, it would be to warmth, a real wood fire and worried voices, hot soup and a large parka fit for a tall man.

In the meantime, the god talked on.

 _"You're a brave kid, you know that?  No?  Well, you are.  I'll give you that.  You tricked 'em fine.  Just do better on the staying alive bit next time, yeah?  I won't always be able to save you when you're stupid."_   The god let out a laugh that made the birds in the nearby trees flee.  _"Ha!  Though I can't say there isn't something to bravery and stupidity being not too far from each_ _other."_

The kid grimaced his sleep, clutching closer to the furs, and the one open set of green eyes softened at the sight.

_"Yeah... you're brave, kid.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."_

They asked him who he was, these people he'd woken up to.

He remembered a person, the person who'd grown up with Dad and Mama and Gramma now gone, the kids at school and the friends he'd had.

He remembered running, and realised that he'd prefere never going back to even the best of the things he'd had.  He put a smile on his face, because people tend not to question a smile, do they?

"I'm-" for a moment, he hesitated, but then it came out.  "Brave.  I'm Brave, ma'am!"

They thought him charming, and delightful, and he'd play tricks that made them laugh.  He'd stay a while... not long, but a while.  He didn't know how he'd ended up there, but they were good people, and warm, when the last thing he remembered was cold, the frost-

_(and the fire and the chaos)_

-that almost made him forget what warm _was._

 _"You trick 'em fine, kid_ _,"_ he thought he heard in the wind, the night he left.

He looked around, but couldn't see anyone, no one but a single raven cawing in the distance, and a fox darting away in the twilight.

...

AN: Could work as an accompanying work to 'As Chaos Demands', since many of the points made here about Brave's past would be the same in that AU.  But these aren't actually the same one.


End file.
